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110 and 130 Bulbs dropping / losing connnection

Model :

Hardware Version :

Firmware Version :

ISP : [/COLOR]

I have three LB130s and two LB110 bulbs set up in hard-wired light fixtures, connected via a Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 running current firmware. I am having constant disconnect problems with both bulb models, with disconnects sometimes happening within just a few minutes. The only way to bring the bulbs back online is to remove and reapply power; they'll power on (and light up), within a minute or so they'll be back online.

I've spent the better part of a week trying different things to attempt to keep the devices online, all without success:

Verified firmware is up to do using Kasa.

Confirmed firewall rules allow outbound access.

Set 2.4GHz access point to "failsafe" settings (RTS/CTS settings, Fragmentation)

Changed 2.4GHz wireless to different channels (1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11) to attempt to eliminate the possibility of interference.

Relocated my wireless AP to ensure clear line-of-sight to all bulbs.

Set DHCP reservations for the bulbs.

Symptoms:

Devices appear offline (grayed out) in Kasa.

Bulbs remain in operating state when they lose their connection (if on, they stay on; if off, they stay off)

Unable to control devices in Kasa - device offline or out of range error.

Bulbs do not respond to 'ping.'

Bulbs come online - every time - perfectly after power cycle.

My feeling is that the bulbs are either going to sleep or otherwise failing a "keep-alive." I'm running a constant 'ping' from my desktop to see if that helps keep the bulbs online. Anyone seen this? Anyone have a solution? (TP-Link - perhaps a firmware problem?)

Our Cable Modem / Wireless AP supports both 5GHz and 2.4GHz. We have an old gaming laptop that only supports 2.4GHz B/G/N. I found that every time my son used that old laptop for online computer games the bulbs would disappear within a few minutes. By adding a 5GHz USB WiFi card, or by connecting by cable (hardwire - who does that anymore?), the bulbs would be much more reliable.

There are a lot of other wireless APs within range of our home. I moved our 2.4GHz band from channel 1 where it competed with 11 other APs, to channel 9, placing it between the less-crowded channels 6 and 11. That also increased reliability.

Finally, we a couple days where we had some internet reliability issues. Our cable service was dropping packets at random. The bulbs would drop fairly frequently

In all cases, removing and re-applying power would solve the problem, however left on their own they'd never reconnect.

What I've learned, and what others could think about when setting up and troubleshooting:

The bulbs are very sensitive to losing "airtime" on the WiFi network. If you tend to use your WiFi for high-bandwidth (movies) or high-chatter (online games) services, the bulbs tend to be less reliable.

The bulbs deal with interference poorly. If there is a lot of cross-talk between WiFi access points, the bulbs are more likely to drop.

These bulbs have either limited, more likely no, reconnect capability. Once the bulbs drop, either from the WiFi or from Kasa, they seem to stay offline until they're reset.

My ask of TP-Link is to address the last item, in particular. Even if the service disappears, the bulb should have a recovery option in some sort of retry that continues on some reasonable repeating timescale. It's also possible an update could help with sensitivity to signal loss or competition for airtime, probably a little harder and longer to implement but likely more effective in the long run.

Losing connection

I had my bulbs lose connection as well and here is one thing I found out. I was trying to use the bulbs with Alexa and the Dot could not control the bulbs. I would try to control the bulbs with my iPhone but it would say the device was offline. Now what I found out was I had the Kasa app open on my iPad as well and it was controlling the bulbs. Once I closed the iPad app the iPhone regained control of the bulbs and then Alexa was able to control the bulbs as well. When I have lost the bulbs they seem to reconnect on their own without me having to turn off power.

Interesting. I opened up a support case with TP Link and they had me download a utility to patch the firmware on the bulbs. So far this has worked great, no bulbs have lost connectivity (knock on wood). I'd give this a try if you haven't already.

Interesting. I opened up a support case with TP Link and they had me download a utility to patch the firmware on the bulbs. So far this has worked great, no bulbs have lost connectivity (knock on wood). I'd give this a try if you haven't already.

What utility patch did they send ? Was it a standard Firmware update , what version , and have you had any more issues since ?

After a recent update on my Asus router both my TP-Link 100 series lights and my TP-Link HS105 mini plugs have started losing connection.overnight. My HS110 plug and HS200 switch were not affected. I tried the suggestions in the thread with no change in the problem. I finally reconnected the troubled components again and in the router setup changed their assigned IP addresses from DHCP to static. The affected products have not dropped out for 5 days now. May be something for you to try if you experience a similar problem.

Tried static IP address earlier this evening and sadly the WiFi has been dropped within a few hours.TP Link sent me a link to a new firmware when I said I had Virgin Media superhub 2 as there seems to be some compatibility issue; however new firmware did not fix either.Really losing the will, I'm rebooting router two or three times a day to reconnect the bulb and this takes nearly five minutes to boot.I have another call with TP Link tomorrow but don't hold out too much hope.